Longshot. Part 20

I said with enjoyment, 'I could certainly get you drunk in the wilderness, but actual gin would depend on juniper bushes, and tonic on chinchona trees for quinine, and I don't think they'd both grow in the same place, but you never know.' I paused. 'Ice cubes might be a problem in the rain forest.'

Tremayne laughed deep in his chest. 'Did you ever rely on all this stuff to save your life?'

'Not entirely,' I said. 'I lived by these techniques for weeks at a time, but someone always knew roughly where I was. I had escape routes. I was basically testing what was practicable and possible and sensible in each area where the agency wanted to set up adventure holidays. I've never had to survive after a plane crash in the mountains, for instance.'

There had been a plane crash in the Andes in 1972 when people had eaten other people in order to stay alive. I didn't think I would tell Mackie, though.

'But,' she said, 'did things ever go wrong?'

'Sometimes.'

'Like what? Do say.'

'Well- like insect bites and eating things that disagreed with me.'

They all looked as if these were everyday affairs, but I'd been too ill a couple of times to care to remember.

I said with equal truth but more drama, 'A bear smashed up my camp in Canada once and hung around it for days. I couldn't reach anything I needed. It was a shade fraught there for a bit.'

'Do you mean it?' Gareth was open-mouthed.

'Nothing happened,' I said. 'The bear went away.'

'Weren't you afraid he would come back?'

'I packed up and moved somewhere else.'

'Wow,' Gareth said.

'Bears eat people,' his brother told him repressively. 'Don't get any ideas about copying John.'

Tremayne looked at his sons mildly. 'Have either of you ever heard of vicarious enjoyment?'

'No,' Gareth said. 'What is it?'

'Dreaming,' Mackie suggested.

Perkin said, 'Someone else does the suffering for you.'

'Let Gareth dream,' Tremayne said, nodding. 'It's natural. I don't suppose for one moment he'll go chasing bears.'

'Boys do stupid things, Gareth included.'

'Hey,' his brother protested. 'Who's talking? Who climbed on to the roof and couldn't get down?'

'Shut your face,' Perkin said.

'Do give it a rest, you two,' Mackie said wearily. 'Why do you always quarrel?'

'We're nothing compared with Lewis and Nolan,' Perkin said. 'They can get really vicious.'

Mackie said reflectively, 'They haven't quarrelled since Olympia died.'

'Not in front of us,' her husband agreed, 'but you don't know what they've said in private.'

Diffidently, because it wasn't really my business, I asked, 'Why do they quarrel?'

'Why does anyone?' Tremayne said. 'But those two envy each other. You met them last night, didn't you? Nolan has the looks and the dash, Lewis is a drunk with brains. Nolan has courage and is thick, Lewis is a physical disaster but when he's sober he's a whiz at making money. Nolan is a crack shot, Lewis misses every pheasant he aims at. Lewis would like to be the glamorous amateur jockey and Nolan would like to be upwardly disgustingly rich. Neither will ever manage it, but that doesn't stop the envy.'

'You're too hard on them,' Mackie murmured.

'But you know I'm right.'

She didn't deny it, but said, 'Perhaps the Olympia business has drawn them together.'

'You're a sweet young woman,' Tremayne told her. 'You see good in everyone.'

Perkin said, 'Hands off my wife,' in what might or might not have been a joke. Tremayne chose to take it lightly, and I thought he must be well used to his son's acute possessiveness.

He turned from Perkin to me and with a swift change of subject said, 'How well do you ride?'

'Er-' I said, 'I haven't ridden a racehorse.'

'What then?'

'Hacks, dude ranch horses, pony trekking, arab horses in the desert.'

'Hm.' He pondered. 'Care to ride my hack with the string in the morning? Let's see what you can do.'

'OK.' I must have sounded half-hearted, because he pounced on it.

'Don't you want to?' he demanded.

'Yes, please.'

'Right, then,' he nodded. 'Mackie, tell Bob to have Touchy saddled up for John, if you're out in the yard before me.'

'Right.'

'Touchy won the Cheltenham Gold Cup,' Gareth told me.

'Oh, did he?' Some hack.

'Don't worry,' Mackie said, smiling, 'he's fifteen now and almost a gentleman.'

'Dumps people regularly on Fridays,' Gareth said.

With apprehension, I went out into the yard on the following morning, Friday, in jodhpurs, boots, ski-jacket and gloves. I hadn't sat on a horse of any sort for almost two years and, whatever Mackie might say, my idea of a nice quiet return to the saddle wasn't a star steeplechaser, pensioned or not.